Sunday morning saw us heading for Trent Bridge to set up camp and launch Guinevere. The early bird crew joined us there, having set off from Exeter at 4.30am to race for Exe-Calibre - such commitment! Unfortunately, Westy had scuppered our best efforts to balance the boat by consuming a ten-course meal the night before - so, we were still right heavy. This was soon remedied by moving the two Stu's into the 'fluffers' section, with Ange and Katrina becoming 'grinders' for the day!

Our quest for BDA points began with the first 200m race at 10.00am, lining up in lane 1 against Batchworth and the home crew (and our closest Standard League rival) Notts Anaconda. As Chris E put it we needed to beat Notts 'on their own dung heap'! The crew focussed on a huge start, perfect timing, long strong strokes and our own race. This focus paid off big time as we recorded a fantastic time of 50.03 secs, just 0.5 of a second behind Batchworth and a very long way ahead of Notts! Job done! This sterling effort took us straight into the semis, racing against Batchworth again and Secklow. As one spectator from another crew was overhead saying 'What, they are in the semis?' - Of course we were!

Unfortunately this semi put us in lane 3, which consistently saw teams clocking much slower times throughout the day. Our 2nd 200m time was 2 seconds slower, meaning we missed out on a minor final place and had to make do with a tail race against Cool Runnings and Typhoon Tigers. With the pressure off, and sixteen league points already in the bag the final 200m saw us in lane 1 and flying down the course, clocking 50.69 secs, pulverising the opposition and winning in style. As Scott put it 'we were looking sexy!'

A leisurely lunch break ensued, with a few exhausted paddlers catching a quick snooze in the sunshine. This break for rest and fuel paid off as we took on the challenge of collecting another 16 league points, this time for the 500m. The first 500m race of the day was undoubtedly the best race of the 2010 season so far for Exe-Calibre - after a blistering start, equalling the power of the starts in the 200m, the transition into our 500m rate was sublime - smooth and locked together as a crew. The rate was perfect and with our long, strong strokes we powered down the course to an amazing time of 2 min 3.73 secs, testament to how well Exe-Calibre can paddle when everyone paddles together and relaxes into their longest strokes. Secklow and Kingston Pretenders faded into the distance, with Secklow finishing a huge 5 seconds behind us and the pretenders another 14 seconds after that!

This superb display of technical brilliance took the crew straight into the Cup semis. Goodbye reps! Cup Semi 3 saw Exe-Calibre line up against the big boys - Kingston Royals and Worcester Dragons; however, by now we really believed we were meant to be there, so with heads up we paddled up to the start line leaving Lisa to watch from the sidelines (she'd used her finger too vigorously in the previous races!). Another fantastic race saw us coming second to Kingston with a time of 2 min 5.69 sec and beating Worcester by 4 secs. Meantime, Lisa had collapsed in a heap after her exertions running alongside trying to keep up with the crew! We had paddled our way into the Cup Minor Final!

Our final race saw us pitched against Raging Dragons and Thames Taniwas. A monumental last effort of the day was thwarted by the sluggish waters of lane 3, which despite Lisa's brave attempts to convince us to the contrary, really did add a good few seconds to our time, giving us third place, but still a fantastic 6th place overall in the 500m from 18 teams. And of course, we had already scooped those 16 league points to give us another maximum haul.

This really was a fantastic team effort - with everyone paddling their socks off, Chrissie and Alex doing a brilliant job on the drum and Sparky only managing to get one verbal warning despite really enjoying the smacked bottom he received for slipping out of our lane! Lauren set up the perfect rate for the crew, with the strokers locking it in, the grinders doing what they do best, and the fluffers tidying it all up at the back of the boat!

All this and we are only 3 race events into the season - we just keep getting better and better! Bring on Preston!